Sky Klkmn

Scoresheet Kings Strategy 2k13

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:38:46 -0400

If you don’t care about my fantasy team or discussing Scoresheet strategy, then don’t read this.

When I managed Beyond the Box Score, I weasled my way into a media Scoresheet league. There’s been a bit of turnover, but I know a lot of the guys in the league via twitter and there aren’t any idiots — something that’s not easy to do with 24 teams.

Scoresheet is a “live” simulation fantasy format — kind of like Strat-o-Matic, but using in-season weekly stats. It’s real baseball: OBP matters more than AVG. Defense matters. Saves don’t matter. It’s not perfect, but it’s my favorite format. (I hate the keeper structure, though.*)

In previous years, I kept only 3-4 players. The limit is 10, but for every player below 10 kept, you get an extra draft pick at the front of the draft. This year, however, I kept the full ten. I’m not sure that was smart, but I did:

Ben Zobrist
Pablo Sandoval
Alex Gordon
Jayson Werth
Denard Span
A.J. Ellis
Ryan Vogelsong
Brandon McCarthy
Jason Hammel
Hisashi Iwakuma

I love the first three guys, especially Zobrist, who’s going to be my starting shortstop. Span has a sweet D rating. But then I’m less excited— Werth’s platoon rating hurts him against righties, which isn’t a great fit for these leagues. Ellis, as a catcher, isn’t a full-timer, and also hits better against lefties — not a great fit considering I kept Travis D’Arnauld with a minor league slot. And the pitchers, well, I like them more than most, but they certainly aren’t workhorses or aces.

Befire my first draft pick, I made two trades. First, I dealt Span and a late pick for Kevin Youkilis and an end pick. I needed a big bat at 1B or DH, and I love him in Yankee Stadium. Then I swapped McCarthy and a later pick for Carlos Beltran and two end picks. Boom, offense greatly improved. I really like McCarthy’s skills, but don’t trust his ability to rack up innings and don’t love the change in parks (Scoresheet adjusts for league, but not park.) I consider this trade a win. The Span for Youkilis deal was more even, but I pulled the trigger because there were more decent CFs remaining than big bats.

Headed into my first pick, my open positions were 2B/SS, CF, starting pitching, and an entire bullpen. Plus depth — Scoresheet’s replacement level is like a .200 hitter/8.00 ERA pitcher, so having backup PAs is critical.

I quickly nabbed Colby Rasmus, who should be only a small downgrade from Span vs righties (DeAza and Pagan were my two other options and both were picked before I had a chance at them.) Then I made the one pick I really regret: Jeff Niemann. I’ve always had a crush on him, but didn’t realize his velocity was down so much. 12th round (2nd round after keepers) was too early for him, and I didn’t have a pick in the next two rounds from my previous trades. Oh well.

In the 15th I grabbed Travis Hafner for offensive depth and Scott Feldman for the rotation. I really wanted a 2B/SS here, but couldn’t pull the trigger. Daniel Murphy, Jeff Keppinger, Omar Infante, Maicer Izturis, Gordon Beckham, and Chris Nelson were all queued up, but went before my pick. I probably should have taken Zach Cozart, but I still like the Hafner/Feldman picks.

I got my 2B in the 16th round: Kelly Johnson. Don’t love him, but the rest of the options were even worse. He has no value vs lefties, but that makes his production vs righties better, a nice tradeoff. Definitely a position I’ll be looking to upgrade via trade.

The 17th round brought Chris Heisey as CF platoon-mate for Rasmus and general OF depth, plus Alex Rodriguez. ARod should be useful for the playoffs, either on my team or as trade bait.

My two round 18 picks are crapshoots: Faux-sto Carmona and Scott Kazmir. The first is completely motivated by the Rays track record with Peralta/Farnsworth/Rodey and their lack of a track record signing starting pitcher free agents. Kazmir’s velocity is back, although control is also a big issue for him. If one turns into a 3rd/4th starter, I’ll call this round a win.

Rounds 19-21 bought on Mike Aviles (platoon mate for Johnson), Kyle Crick (young pitching prospect who will be trade bait), and Jason Bay (a big bat flier). Oh, and I nabbed my first relief arm in Casey Janssen.

I hate relievers. Well, I hate valuing any specific reliever. A deep bullpen is important in Scoresheet, especially with my iffy rotation. I’d rather have a ton of 3.50 ERA relievers pitch innings 6-9 than 3.75-4.25 ERA starters. I made a lot of trades where I acquired late-round picks (I have 8 of the last 23 picks in the draft). These will be bullpen arms. But it’s nice to have a couple high-end relievers, too, and if healthy, Janssen would have gone higher.

That’s everyone so far. I need some depth and a lot of bullpen arms, but I also have some picks to spare on prospects and breakout candidates. I’m very happy with my lineup — while lacking a stud hitter, it has both OBP and power, with good depth and lots of flexibility. My defense is no worse than average. The starting rotation is meh, but not bad for lacking an ace. I have the pieces to trade for a pitcher mid-season, if I’m in the hunt.

One lesson I’ve learned is that I jump at underrated older players (call me Scoresheet’s Brian Sabean.) While a solid strategy for current-season succss, it helps explain why I lack superstar keepers. Old guys don’t become stars. You have to take fliers on younger guys for that.

Definitely interested in feedback, bring it on.

* Or league punishes the value of young players compared to veterans. You can keep prospects for next to free until they lose rookie status, but then their cost is the same as a veteran: one of your 10 keeper spots. Most youngsters aren’t stars immediately. It’s worth keeping a young Matt Wieters with a $1M pre-free agent contract, but not a $15M one, as an analogy. And since there’s a soft cap, it’s only worth keeping a player if they provide value beyond who you could nab in the draft. Except for my top three guys, I would be ok throwing my keepers back and choosing from the available pool. Therefore, acquiring studs (often through rip-off 3 for 1 deals) is a priority. I’d rather have a contract system, or a hard keeper limit (so that having more mediocre keepers has value). Of course, I don’t dislike the current system enough to leave the league.

Reacting to the end of The Wheel of Time

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:31:40 -0400

[I wrote this for me, but published it. And it’s not about baseball. You’ve been warned.]

I just finished the fourteenth and last book in the Wheel of Time epic fantasy series. I started the first book about 12 years ago, so it’s been a long, sometimes frustrating journey. (When you wait three years for the next book to come out and *nothing happens*, that’s frustrating.) It’s not a series for everyone, and I actually enjoyed listening to the books during my commute more than reading them (there’s too much descriptive prose for my tastes, so I’d often skip ahead when actually reading.)

Anyways, this is the first time I can remember getting emotional when finishing a book series. It’s happened many times for a tv series, but never books.

* Let’s Pozterisk my most emotional tv series endings (not the best endings, but the ones that most hit home that the series was over):

Six Feet Under
Deep Space 9
Battlestar Galactica
The Wire

Finality reminds me a lot of graduating high school, breaking up with a long-term girlfriend, moving cities/jobs, etc. While the next step might be exciting, it’s a complete unknown, and you’re forced to give up the status quo. It’s the end. You have to start over. What was won’t be any more. There’s probably a good Shakespeare quote to insert here about fleeting moments.

The Wheel of Time has its issues, but I enjoy epic plots, and the way this epic reduced down to the fates of a few individual characters at the end (the epilogue, to be exactly) really left an impression. One most of all.

In the epilogue, it’s revealed that Rand (the main protagonist) switched bodies with one of the bad guys. Everyone except about five people think he’s dead. He no longer has his magical abilities. He no longer has an obligation to save humanity. He’s starting fresh, but coming off a pretty stressful three (?) year period where he conquered countries, risked his life daily, lost his hand, dealt with two un-heal-able super-wounds, killed really powerful baddies, plotted to kill Evil itself, and eventually came to understand everything about the nature of the universe itself.

I mean, he’s probably relieved, but what a downer — “it’s about the journey, not the destination” and all that. What do you do next? How do you find meaning in anything else? How could anything else seem important?

Back in the real world, I wonder if I’ll ever get to a point in my life where my best work and my most challenging activities are behind me. Can you adjust? Can you pretend your current state isn’t a letdown? Can you learn to enjoy the destination? Of course, to pull from tWoT, maybe it’s not the end but just an end. There are always more beginnings.

On a more right-now time scale, I suppose it’s time to find a new book series.

/meandering thoughts, catharsis achieved

My Scoresheet Stars Problem

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:31:24 -0500

I’m a decent fantasy player, but not great. I think I’m decent at Scoresheet, too, but in the BP Kings league I have a problem: I don’t have any stars and I don’t know how to get them.

Ben Zobrist is my best player, and Alex Gordon and Pablo Sandoval are solid All-Star caliber support, but none are an Albert Pujols, Mike Trout, or Miguel Cabrera. Kings keeper rules allow for a soft 10, meaning if you keep fewer than 10, you’ll get an additional draft pick up front. Mediocre keepers aren’t necessarily better than those bonus picks, so a premium is placed on stars. Trading 3 3-WAR players for a 6-WAR player is a big win long-term.

I see a few ways to get stars, none of which are routes I do or want to take.

Harass other teams into taking 3 for 1 trades. These mostly get laughed away, but sometimes they are close to fair. Noobs receive tons of these offers, not surprisingly. It hurts to see others pull them off, but I don’t want to be that guy.
Draft/trade for prospects who grow into stars. This certainly matches real baseball mostly closely, but it’s a big investment. One, you have to carry prospects as keeper for a few years, losing a draft pick at the end of the draft. Then a prospect usually doesn’t dominate their first year in the league, so you have to keep a possibly mediocre player with a real keeper slot for a year or two. THEN they become a star… maybe. It’s a huge dice roll. I don’t like dice rolls. (Put another way, prospects get “paid” like free agents after their first year in MLB. Little reward for developing them.)
Keep fewer players, get first shot at new players. This worked great for Brandon Warne last year, as he took Yu Darvish and Yoenis Cespedes with the first two picks. On the other hand, those two aren’t exactly MVP candidates. Plus, Shaun Marcum and Kelly Johnson were the top two picks of the previous draft.
Overpay for stars after keepers are due, sacrificing a season. I could probably trade Zobrist, Gordon, and Sandoval for a star, but that would kill me for this year. I don’t mind rebuilding part way through a season, but to give up ahead of time? Not my style.

In some respects, finding stars is a lot like finding a stud rotation. It’s both necessary and a bad gamble. Other strategies, such as focusing on position players, have a higher expected value, but it’s hard to reach the pinnacle of the league without hitting that flush on the river. Only those willing to take the risk see the highest rewards. Maybe it’s just my personality that I would rather have an 85-90 win team and bow out in the playoffs than suffer through some bad years and win it all eventually.

Or maybe I’m missing something. This is probably it, and I’ll take any and all advice you have for acquiring star players in leagues where they are extra valuable. Bring it on. And thanks.

Important Saber Concepts

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 11:51:00 -0500

Attention stats/analytics-oriented community: I’m seeking your help for a project…

If you were to want more “mainstream” fans/media to be more aware of/better understand advanced metrics, can you rattle off 3-5 you think are most important. You can tweet them to me or email me at egrant@dallasnews.com …. Your help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Great question from Evan Grant. I’m going to answer it, even if the tweet was posted through Sulia.

Actually, I’m going to cheat and change the question a bit. Instead of talking about 5 metrics, I’m going to talk about 5 concepts. There are often many stats that measure the same thing, and their usage is dictated by nuance. But since we’re not at the level of nuance, let’s focus on the big picture. My top 5 important “saber” concepts:

Runs are runs are runs (are wins). Bartering isn’t so popular these days. Instead, we measure the value of goods and services in currency, at least in part because it gives us a common unit of comparison. In baseball, runs are the common currency. Hitting helps add runs. Baserunning helps add runs. Outfield assists help reduce runs. If you want to compare different players with different skills, you need a common currency. So, measure hitting in runs, baserunning in runs, and defense in runs. Then add it all together.

If we don’t do this, players who contribute a little in a lot of categories become underrated, such as Kenny Lofton (the only player ever to be 100+ runs above average in hitting, baserunning, and fielding). This doesn’t require a formula for everything, either. Feel free to eyeball defense, for example.

For more, check out the WARs at B-Ref, Fangraphs, and Baseball Prospectus.
Defense = position + fielding. There are lots of fielding stats these days. But they only measure fielding relative to position. Don’t forget include the position. For example, a -5 fielder at SS is still much better than a +5 fielder at 1B.

It’s really easy to find a 1B with a decent bat, and much harder to find a CF with a decent bat (hence BJ Upton’s $75M contract.) Simply playing a difficult position provides value, allowing better hitters to play the easier positions. Playing a tough position well and/or hitting well while playing that position are often just icing on the cake.

For more, check out position adjustments throughout history.
Shit happens. Or, more technically, variation and regression to the mean happen. A baseball season isn’t that long of a time. A month, a week, or a single game of a baseball season is nothing. Which means the stats produced in these short time frames are next to meaningless when predicting what will come next. Hitters guess right for a while, then guess wrong. Pitching have the feel for a curve ball, then lose it. We can always create plausible theories for why variation happens, but the default theory should always be “we don’t know”. When predicting the future, ignore recent happenings, and don’t overfit stories to data.

For more, enjoy this: http://xkcd.com/904/
Linear weights »> AVG. Getting hits is just one piece of the puzzle. There are other ways to get on base and some hits are better than others. With some math, we can measure the relative importance of singles, triples, GIDPs, etc. We can even measure their relative importance in different situations (runner on third, no outs vs bases loaded, two outs). That’s linear weights (and OPS and wOBA and TAv and RE24 and WPA, to varying extents.) Instead of measuring a hitter’s ability to get a hit, we should measure a hitter’s ability to help his team score more runs. It’s more complete, more accurate.

For more, check out wOBA and RC+ at Fangraphs. Or if you’re adventurous, I love this series of articles on how runs are really created. (Note: you never have to use or think about the term “linear weights” if it seems dumb or confusing.)
Context matters. The league ERA in Sandy Koufax’s last season was 3.61. His home park helped pitchers. The league ERA in Pedro Martinez’ best season was 4.91. His park hurt pitchers. They posted 1.73 and 1.74 ERAs, respectively. Ergo, Pedro’s ERA is way more impressive. Not all context differences are this obvious, but even a bunch of small differences adds up.

The AL is different from the NL. Every home park is different. The population able/allowed to play baseball has changed. Rules have changed. The ball has changed. Numbers require context, even if we can’t always measure the context (although we can, a lot of the time.)

The numbers aren’t always right, and they don’t need or claim to be. It’s the concepts behind them that are important, and these concepts are pretty solid. In fact, I’d be happy to read articles that account for these concepts but that don’t use any specific stats or numbers.

Thanks for reading. Always happy to continue the discussion or answer more questions.

Update: some good suggestions for additional concepts via Twitter friends:

Money matters. Players are a combination of their performance and salary.
Runs prevention != pitching.
Don’t confuse team stats with individual stats. Much of what we measure for an individual player is heavily reliant on his team. For example, ERA and Wins for pitchers (dependent on defense and/or teammates’ hitting) and RBI/Runs (require teammates to drive in/teammates to drive you in.)

PED Suspicion

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 07:20:02 -0400

I launched a poll via Twitter last night, asking “Which of these players do you think are using PEDs?” 154 people have already responded and here are those results:

50% David Ortiz
46% Ryan Braun
39% Edwin Encarnacion
36% Albert Pujols
35% Jose Bautista
33% AJ Pierzinski
32% Miguel Cabrera
28% Josh Hamilton
26% Yoenis Cespedes
25% Michael Morse
24% Yadier Molina
24% Adrian Beltre
23% Ryan Howard
22% Carlos Beltran
21% Derek Jeter
18% Josh Reddick
18% Mark Trumbo
17% Matt Kemp
17% Joey Votto
16% Adam Dunn
15% Jamey Carroll
15% Jim Thome
15% Bryce Harper
14% David Wright
14% Alex Gordon
14% Johnny Cueto
14% Aroldis Chapman
13% Gio Gonzalez
13% Dustin Pedroia
12% Mike Trout
12% Justin Verlander
12% Andrew McCutchen
12% Jeff Samardzija
11% Mariano Rivera
11% Felix Hernandez
10% Dustin Ackley
10% Cliff Lee
10% Craig Kimbrel
9% Stephen Strasburg
8% Michael Bourn
8% RA Dickey

I wouldn’t read into these numbers too much — non-representative snowball sample, zero screening process, yada yada — although the relative rankings are interesting. Feel free to share your thoughts on Twitter (@Sky_Kalkman) or suggest names to ask in a second survey.

FWIW, 16% of respondents selected nobody, 19% selected a single player, 31% selected between 2 and 5 players, 23% were between 6 and 15 players, 7% were between 16 and 30 players, and 5% selected at least 38 players. (There are 41 players included.)

B-level pitching prospects are worth almost half as much as...

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:25:57 -0400

B-level pitching prospects are worth almost half as much as top-level pitching prospects. This is also the level where pitching prospects are actually better bets than their hitting counterparts. As teams over-value highly rated young pitchers, a better option is to favor quantity over quality. Spaghetti-against-the-wall and all…

Ice Cream Tips

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 11:05:57 -0400

I’ve been making a lot of ice cream recently, spurred on by acquisition of a second freezing cannister. I’m no expert, but I do have some advice for new ice cream chefs. These are those tips.

Keep your freezing cannister in the freezer at all times. It takes at least 24 hours to freeze solid, and 48 hours is optimal. If you’re anything like me, two days warning for ice cream is way too long.
Make sure your freezer is cold enough. This is especially true when you travel and bring your ice cream maker with you. Nothing worse than driving 7 hours to Cape Cod in July and not having your pina colada ice cream freeze. (I know, bourgeois suffering.)
Don’t cheat and plan to eat the ice cream immediately after churning. Even just 2-4 hours in the freezer will significantly improve the texture. And take the ice cream out 5-15 minutes before serving to soften slightly.
Store the ice cream in a glass container that you pre-“froze” — this will prevent the just-churned ice cream from melting immediately where it touches the container.
Buy a second cannister and keep it in the freezer. This is somewhat of an advanced move, but you can make twice as much ice cream at a time (say, for a party) OR you can make two flavors at once. And it’s relatively cheap.
Some flavors require no heating of the liquid. These are great and quick. Some do require heating, especially custards. Learn to temper eggs (it’s both easy and easy to screw up.) If you don’t want to wait 4-8 hours to cool in the fridge, bring down to 40 degres using an ice bath (bowl in bowl or baggie in bowl.)
Make two complementary flavors at once (one right after the other, actually — this requires two freezing cannisters) and “swirl” them before storing in the freezer. Better yet, pick two different types of “ice cream” — coconut ice cream and mango sorbet, chocolate ice cream and raspberry sherbet, vanilla/chocolate/strawberry ice creams, etc.
Check out The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz for a ton of great recipe ideas.
Get creative with flavors — deconstruct other favorite foods and turn them into frozen desserts. My wife had the idea to start with a basic lemon ice cream and add poppy seeds and shortbread bits to mimic a lemon poppy seed muffin. It’s awesome.
Some other of our favorites: blueberry buttermilk sherbet, toasted coconut ice cream, and strawberry balsamic ice cream (you don’t taste the balsamic, it just makes the strawberry taste more strawberry-y.)
Simple flavors with quality ingredients is a great route to take, too. “Plain” vanilla made with vanilla beans is way better than you can buy at the store.
Try some “savory” flavors, like olive oil ice cream or herb sorbets (basil, thyme are good starting points). With how much sugar is involved they’re still sweet, but it’s a whole other category of frozen dessert.
There’s a whole science to texture that involves ratios of fat/sugar/water/alcohol/eggs which can be a lot of fun if you’re into that sort of thing. But you can also follow recipes without missing out on great results.
Once you get really into making ice cream, think about homemade sauces, add-in, toppings, etc. Really kicks things up a notch. I just made a mulled red wine and rhubarb sauce that would be great with tons of flavors.
Some handy equipment: blender, stick blender (for when pouring scalding liquid into a blender doesn’t sound fun), wire mesh strainer (for removing fruit seeds, coagulated bits of eggs, and other unwanted bits), instant electronic thermometer (for making sure you heat liquids to the right temperature and making sure you’ve cooled liquids low enough before churning.)
Buy a small cooler, a bit of dry ice, and mail me samples of your favorite concoctions. Don’t forget to check the appropriate safety boxes on the shipping form.

Scouting and RPGs

Fri, 25 May 2012 10:03:00 -0400

This post has the goal of explaining a comment I’ve made on Twitter a few times: good scouting writing is a lot like good role-playing-game design. Be forewarned, I’m not a scout and the last RPG I played was probably Final Fantasy III. But as someone who enjoys reading about both as entertainment, let me see if I can explain the parallels.

First, by “scouting”, I actually mean a couple things:

One, scouting doesn’t just have to be human visual observations, it can include stopwatch times, radar gun readings, video analysis, or a lot of the spiffy new Pitch f/x data. Basically anything you can observe about a player over a small sample (a game or two). We’re not dissecting performance results, but performance methods (I almost typed processes but that’s a loaded word.)
I’m also broadening the usage of scouting a bit — not just the current state of a player’s abilities, but also a player’s potential and avenues of development. That last one is broad, as it nearly requires a full understanding of how baseball works.

That last phrase is probably the most important — at its core, we’re trying to understand how baseball works. I’m not foolish enough to think we can ever fully answer that question or that we’re close. But to make any claims about players, we have to claim some level of knowledge about baseball and talk about players within that framework.

Now, the RPGs. Let me repeat that phrase again: a full understanding of how baseball works. You could substitute a RPG phrase instead: a full understanding of how a RPG’s universe works. Kill an enemy, get 3 coins. Kill a boss, get a rare item. Collect 1,000 experience points, level up. Pair this crystal with that one, cast a special spell. Use a fire potion on a water monster, deal extra damage. Use a special attack, sit out the next round of battle.

It’s one thing to understand all the little rules of a RPG, but they also have to make sense as a whole. Why do enemies carry coins? Why does a new level bring more stats? Why do crystals exist in this world and why does combining them do new things. Why does the special attack take more time? Some of those answers are mechanical and follow from other mechanisms. Some are narrative and follow from the theme and story of the game. Both can be explanatory and both can be entertaining. Especially in board games, there’s enjoyment in the inter-workings of the rules. And a good story can explain away some awkward rules.

In many ways we’re talking about a model — a model of how a RPG works and a model of how baseball works.

A scout on twitter once told me a story about watching Miguel Cabrera bat in A-ball. He didn’t get a hit and his season line was putrid. Yet it was obvious to this scout (and everyone else, apparently) that while Cabrera currently wasn’t any good, he was the best hitter in that league and had great things ahead of him. That’s a sensational lede, now tell me the rest of the story. Tell me about how his swing is fast and compact, but he can’t recognize a breaking ball worth crap. Tell me how someone learns to recognize a curve ball and why Cabrera will certainly pick up this skill. Tell me how his approach at the plate is poor, what a good approach looks like, and how someone learns to change their approach — is it all at once or are their stages of development? Explain why he has most of the tools to drive balls to all fields, but he needs a slight tweak of his mechanics in order to use those tools effectively. (I could go on for a while here.)

Like RPGs, there are a couple levels to good scouting (actually, “good communication of scouting” might be more accurate.) First, explain the individual mechanics better. Two crystals = special spell; doing X let’s you hit a curve ball better because Y. Second, connect the individual mechanics in a meaningful way. This involves pure storytelling, but also requires the individual mechanics to be discussed in a common way with hooks that can be connected. (There are a lot of paradigm issues at play — many ways to discuss the same thing. Picking a consistent perspective is important.) You get the boomerang from the first boss because he’s the bully who stole it in the first place; a slider combines well with a four-seamer because it moves in two different planes, and hitters don’t deal well with multiple plane changes because X, Y and Z. Everything is connected to everything else if you’re willing to take the time to tell a long story.

So before talking about any individual player, have a full world-view of baseball in place. Know how things interconnect, how one things affects another. And when talking about something specific, relate it to other things that connect to it in a variety of other directions. This adds context to help understanding, adds reasons-to-believe, and makes the whole thing more entertaining. Baseball might not be as cut-and-dried as a RPG (nothing is), but by treating it as such, I think scouting writing can be more informative and more entertaining.

Discussion invited.

Control, Command, and Modeling

Mon, 07 May 2012 09:28:19 -0400

I don’t understand the difference between command and control. I mean, I could spit back some of the differences I’ve heard spoken about by scouts, but I don’t get it. Now, maybe that’s my fault for being dense, although communication is a two-way street. But if I’m being bold, I actually think it’s a bad way to talk about pitcher skills. In the next few paragraphs, I’m going to outline why I think these concepts make for a bad model and raise some more questions. Afterwards, I’m hoping to chat with others to flesh things out.

As I understand it, control refers to a pitcher’s ability to throw pitches in the strike zone and avoid giving up walks, while command refers to a pitcher’s ability to locate pitches within the strike zone, avoiding fat pitches that can get crushed. My main frustration with these two concepts is that they aren’t independent. Both involve the idea “aim”, plus other differnig skills. Why would we discuss two skills that heavily overlap? To me, it makes more sense to pull out “aim” as a core skill, then discuss what skills lie behind the ability to aim both in and out of the zone.

There’s an acronym I use a lot in my job called MECE, which stands for mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive. If you think of a model of reality as a jigsaw puzzle, none of the pieces overlap, and together they show the full picture. I realize this isn’t always possible, but it’s often a good goal. Control and command aren’t mutually exclusive (and that annoys me.)

It’s not just control and command that overlap properties. My non-expert hunch is that one of the main reasons pitchers don’t throw more pitches in the strike zone is that their stuff isn’t good enough. They aim for the edge of the zone because the cost of missing outside (a ball) isn’t as bad as the cost of missing over the heart of the plate (a line drive or home run.) A pitcher with impeccable aim but mediocre stuff won’t rate highly in control. How is that a useful model? Why not, instead, talk about aim and stuff separately? Two pitchers who throw a lot of balls might actually need to work on two totally different things. The one with bad aim should work on aim. The one with mediocre stuff should work on improving his stuff. And how does command fit in? Is it a purer measure of aim? What other core skills are involved/related other than aim.

There’s more complexity, too. Pitchers have varying amounts of stuff and aim on each pitch type they throw. And there are other fundamental skills that could be part of the MECE model of pitching, such as pitch sequencing (could be mental and/or how much repetition a pitcher needs to get “feel” for a pitch), stamina, consistency of break, consistency of velocity, consistency of delivery (not tipping pitches) and how well a repertoire complements itself.

Anyway, that’s my overly aggressive “I’m right and everyone else is wrong” explanation. I’m actually interested in a dialogue, so if you’re interested, help me understand.

On OPS, OPS+, wOBA, wRC+

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:20:06 -0400

I sent this to someone earlier today. If you’re trying to figure out the similarities and differences between the above stats, it may help you.

You can think of wRC+ as wOBA+ (it’s called something different for a pretty technical reason.) OPS : OPS+ :: wOBA : wRC+

OPS and OPS+ are based on OBP and SLG. wOBA and wRC+ are based on linear weights.

OPS+ and wRC+ are park and league adjusted. OPS and wOBA are usually not. (Although you certainly could park-adjust them, they usually aren’t.)

OPS+ and wRC+ are set to 100 as average. OPS and wOBA are not.

*** ***

wRC+ is what OPS+ was designed for. wOBA is what OPS was designed for. The OPS options are just plain less accurate. Some may still prefer to use them because they are more familiar with their scale, but they don’t get you anything else.

*** ***

Sure, a 1.000 OPS is always impressive, even unadjusted. But you don’t need any of these stats to tell you that someone who put up a season that good had a good season. You can see that in HRs, OBP, etc. When you need more accurate measurements, then you should use a more accurate stat. But sometimes color is more important to a story than accuracy, so you choose more descriptive stats. OPS seems to be caught in a middle-ground: too advanced for many, not much color, and has less accuracy.

Why I'm Excited to Pay for March Madness Live

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:26:00 -0500

Yes, you can watch every game for free on CBS and other stations it owns. Yes, you can stream every game for free if you’re a cable subscriber. Yes, the same service was free last year. But I’m excited to pay $4 for the streaming privilege. Why? Well, for a few reasons…

Functionally, because I have to, not being a cable customer nor getting a broadcast signal at my house. Oh, and that whole wanting to watch basketball while at work thing.

But mostly, I’m excited to pay for this service because I want many more a la carte content services like this to exist. HBO GO for a monthly fee? Yes, please. ESPN and NBC Sports streaming for a monthly fee? Yes, please. All MLB games over the internet? Yes, please — well, that one already exists. I’m willing to pay a good price for content I like, I just don’t want to pay for stuff I don’t. Basketball in March is something I want. I’ll support it and I’ll enjoy the heck out of it.

Plus, let’s be real, it’s only $4. FOUR DOLLARS. I just blew that much on one beer.

Addendum: How about some math. Assume cable costs $80 per month and you watch 2 hours of TV a day. That’s 60 hours a month, or $1.25 per hour. I’ll probably watch March Madness a total of 10-20 hours. For $4, that’s $.20 to $.40 per hour. A steal!

Baseball Players My Wife Knows Off the Top of Her Head

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:37:33 -0500

bob walk
jay bell
bobby bonilla
barry bonds
darryl strawberry
nolan ryan (looks like roy scheider)
jose canseco
deion sanders
bo jackson
albert pujoles
alex rodriguez
sammy sosa
mark (the home run guy)
michael jordan
babe ruth
joe dimaggio
mickey mantle
reggie jackson
hank aaron
lou gehrig
andy van slyke
that tex-mex guy
jesus guy who pitched for the red sox during the 03 or 04 world series
cal ripken

Bad Examples

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:17:25 -0500

Jesus/Pineda Challenge Trade

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:05:03 -0500

This is a really fun trade. My scattered thoughts:

While I’m a big proponent of judging trades at the time they occur, these are all young players who can go many directions. There’s likely to be a clear winner eventually and I think it’s more ok to judge this trade based on results than others.
To judge this trade right now, you need to have strong knowledge of these players from a scouting point of view. I don’t have that, and most people out there don’t have that.
Generally, I’m a big fan of trading pitchers for hitters.
The one year of service time already used up by Pineda is a big deal. If you assume 0%/0%/0%/40%/60%/80% salaries relative to free agent value for years 1-6 of team control, he’s used up 23% of his value even though only 17% of his service time is gone.
Due to their ballpark, Seattle’s expected arbitration payments to Montero will be suppressed relative to Pineda, for similar value.
Baseball people I trust don’t think Pineda’s as good as his numbers were last year. His second half certainly wasn’t as good as his start, although just because a storyline is plausible doesn’t mean it’s true.
On a completely irrational level, I’m a believer of the “Jesus was bored at AAA” story last year.
Hector Noesi, as a likely 4/5 starter, has more value to teams that aren’t the Yankees.
Jose Campos is exactly type of pitching prospect I’d target in trades as “throw-ins”. B-grade pitching prospects, as shown by Victor Wang, are the sweet spot of the roulette-style gamble that are pitching prospects, more valuable than their hitting equivalents. They flop a lot, but still have the upside to make the gamble worth it, relative to expectations.

JC and Distribution of Talent

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:08:00 -0500

Sometimes I feel like I’m picking on JC. But then I realize he’s trying to make money off of people via his book and he’s more repetitious than I am. And then I don’t feel as bad. Anyway, he’s done some cool things with sabermetrics (the PrOPS framework was awesome) and his econ-based approach is fresh (valuing players from a revenue-generating point of view could be awesome). However, he’s made some HUGE mistakes and many misleading claims. Given that popular sites like SOSH, BPro, and the Freakonomics blog give him a forum to spread bad information, I thought it might be helpful to write a collection of articles I can use to help people understand what’s going on. Today I’ll start with one of his silliest ideas.

The Claim

JC is not a fan of “replacement level”. One of his arguments against it is that there are very few replacement level players, meaningful they’re not readily available and don’t deserve the MLB minimum salary. In JC’s model a -20 run player (think Jeff Francoeur) is worth about $3M, while a replacement level model pegs them at $400k. JC’s “evidence” for the scarcity of replacement level players is based on this:

That’s a histogram of every hitter with at least 100 plate appearances during the 2009 season. Notice there are a lot of league-average hitters, but not so many below a .600 OPS, which is where replacement level hitters might fall. Because there aren’t many hitters that low, JC claims they are scarce.

Common Sense

Before I get mildly statty, ask yourself, “Self, does it make any sense to think that there are more good baseball players than bad baseball players in the world?”

No, it doesn’t make sense. What’s going on is a heavy dose (well, two doses) of selective sampling. One, JC’s only looking at MLB players — but many replacement level players are in the minor leagues. Two, JC’s only looking at players with at least 100 plate appearances, but many replacement level players don’t receive 100 plate appearances. If you ignore the population you’re trying to find, you won’t find them.

JC is correct that MLB production is bell-shaped. Most of the playing time produces league-average production, with less star-level and replacement-level production. However, while stars are rare, replacement level players are not. Tom Tango explained nicely…

The Longer Explanation

Even 30 year-olds struggling in single-A are damn good baseball players compared to the world’s population. So when we look at MLB talent, it’s going to be the right tail of a huge bell curve, like this:

The superstars are at the far right of that graph. But why don’t we see as much bad production as the left side of the graph shows? Because teams don’t need those guys. They’re the bench players or long guys out of the bullpen. They see 75 plate appearances or 20 IP.

Playing time is distributed based on talent, something like this:

The production levels in MLB are a combination of the two graphs. There aren’t many stars, so the right side of the graph is low. There are more mediocre players, and they see a lot of playing time, so the middle of the graph is high. And there are even more crappy players, but they get in the game so rarely that the left side is again low. Like this:

Looks eerily similar to JC’s graph, right?

The Summary

The lower the talent level, the easier it is to find. In other words, the worse the player, the more abundant they are. That’s common sense. Replacement level players are stashed on MLB benches and spread throughout AA and AAA (although most AA and AAA players aren’t good enough to be considered replacement level.) The reason you don’t see much replacement-level production in MLB is because teams can mostly fill out their starting lineups with better production.

Moral of the story: if you limit your search to players in the major leagues with significant playing time, of course you won’t find worse players. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist in droves.

Addendum

Commentors at JC’s site made another excellent point — there’s much more turnover among the worse players in MLB. If you’re an above-average player, you’re likely to play for at least a few years. But if you’re a bench player, you’re more likely to get a look and never come back. So by looking at one year’s worth of data, JC ignores the fact that the middle and right sides of the graph are likely to include similar players year to year, while the left side will see a lot more turnover. Again, there are more players at the lower end of the spectrum.

My Hall of Fame Ballot

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 19:35:00 -0500

If These Guys Aren’t In, There’s No Point In Having a Hall of Fame

Bert Blyleven — just a joke that’s he not
Jeff Bagwell — huuuuuge bat, plus more defensive value than the usual huge bat

Definitely In

Tim Raines — raines30.com pretty much sums it up
Kevin Brown — wasn’t a stud until age 31, but 1996-2000 were just sick
Barry Larkin — basically who people think Derek Jeter is, but in a Reds uniform
Edgar Martinez — has a lifetime .418 OBP and 147 OPS+; played 3B for 1/3 of his career
Alan Trammell (and Lou Whitaker) — basically Barry Larkin, but in a Tigers uniform
Larry Walker — the fielding and baserunning get him in, plus two gross years: 1997 and 2001
Robert Alomar

Have Arguments Either Way — No Right Answer

Nobody right now, but this is a category worth emphasizing

Nope, Not All That Close, But Worth Mentioning

Don Mattingly
Fred McGriff
John Olerud

Extenuating Circumstances

Mark McGwire — definitely in, ignoring PEDs
Rafael Palmeiro — more in than out, ignoring PEDs